Supply lines: A former soldier’s take on tourism’s failure to win hearts & minds

How does a spe­cial forces sol­dier become an out­spoken pro­ponent for and awar­ded prac­ti­tion­er of sin­cerely respons­ible tour­ism? In this “GT” Insight, Shane K Beary takes us back to his past before ask­ing us to con­sider his vis­ion for the future; a more equit­able com­munity-based travel & tour­ism industry. And it’s all about the sup­ply chain.

It is refresh­ing to read the pro­gress­ive views expressed in many recent art­icles on the COVID-19 prob­lem, and its role as a cata­lyst driv­ing a more equit­able restruc­ture of the tour­ism industry. The biggest obstacle to that restruc­ture is the strangle­hold that tourism’s com­mis­sion-based sup­ply chain sys­tem holds over the industry. 

My jour­ney to reach this con­clu­sion — and my pro­posed solu­tion [PDF] — has not fol­lowed a con­ven­tion­al path.

Self-reliance, self-discipline, and the value of teamwork

I was born in Ire­land in the early 1950s but it was in Cape Town, South Africa where I spent my preschool days, dawn to dusk, on the beach or in the rock pools that lined the coast. To my father’s frus­tra­tion I showed little appet­ite for study. I often jumped off the train to school to go out on the fish­ing boats based in Kalk Bay. I was, of course, caught.

A five-year inter­lude in Eng­land, includ­ing a few years at a Jesuit board­ing school, was fol­lowed by my fam­ily’s return to Africa, arriv­ing in what was then Rhodesia — now Zim­b­ab­we — only weeks after the Declar­a­tion of Independence. 

Those were tur­bu­lent times. I joined the army at the age of 16. 

Sev­en years in the com­bat mil­it­ary taught me self-reli­ance, self-dis­cip­line and the value of team­work. I served in the Com­mando units, became a com­bat track­er, then instruct­or, before join­ing the SAS. 

By pure luck, I was selec­ted to spend four months’ train­ing with the South Afric­an navy as an assault diver trained in the use of under­wa­ter explosives. 

After that I was recruited to the Selous Scouts — a spe­cial forces regi­ment of the Rhodesian Army — dur­ing the very early days when it was no more than a hand­ful of men func­tion­ing as a pseudo war­fare unit. 

Leav­ing Rhodesia in 1975 — Rhodesia became Zim­b­ab­we in 1979 — I spent 10 years on the oil fields in the North Sea. For the first time in my life, study­ing became mean­ing­ful to me. I could see value in its dir­ect applic­a­tion to my train­ing and work as a sat­ur­a­tion diver. I spent more than 1,000 days in decom­pres­sion cham­bers across the UK and Nor­we­gi­an sec­tors, which offered ample time to read widely and think critically. 

A headlong dive into tourism

After a couple of years as a diving super­in­tend­ent work­ing out of Singa­pore, I arrived in Thai­l­and in 1984. A vis­it to north­ern Thai­l­and and the Thai-Myan­mar bor­der vil­lage of Ban That­on saw me shelve my plans in favour of build­ing a teak­wood lodge and adven­ture tour base on the banks of the Kok River. 

In the early days, the ‘around Thai­l­and’ group tour trade provided us with 100 – 200 lunch guests a day in the tour­ist sea­son. This was my first expos­ure to the con­trol that the main­stream or mass tour­ism industry held over the industry. Apart from a few busi­nesses like my own, or the ele­phant camps along the route, few loc­al com­munit­ies benefited from the vast sums of money that the 50,000 tour­ists a year generated. 

As pre­dicted by the But­ler mod­el for tour­ism devel­op­ment, with the open­ing of new roads and of new attrac­tions in Chi­ang Rai, tour­ism moved on with noth­ing gained from it by the loc­al com­munity. In response, in 1994, I wrote a pro­pos­al call­ing for the redevel­op­ment and repos­i­tion­ing of tour­ism in the north, and sub­mit­ted it, along with my pro­posed solu­tions, to the industry and the author­it­ies. It fell on deaf ears.

Adaptive traits

Not sat­is­fied with our situ­ation, we pivoted. We brought in busi­ness part­ners — teach­ers from the Inter­na­tion­al Schools — and built a new resort: The Maekok River Vil­lage Resort & Out­door Edu­ca­tion Centre. This would accom­mod­ate a dif­fer­ent type of cli­ent and ensure employ­ment with­in our com­munity. (Maekok River Vil­lage won a pres­ti­gi­ous award from the Thai Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion in 2015 recog­nising the US$1.5 mil­lion dol­lars in fund­ing and hands-on work our vis­it­ing schools had con­trib­uted to some 155 small pro­jects for rur­al schools. And the first Shan girl to win a full schol­ar­ship to Bris­tol Uni­ver­sity UK is a gradu­ate of our bursary programme.)

In 2004 we estab­lished a second centre in the moun­tains above Chi­ang Mai. Pang Soong Lodge func­tioned as a bio­logy and envir­on­ment­al sys­tems & soci­et­ies (ESS) teach­er train­ing ven­ue for Inter­na­tion­al Bac­ca­laur­eate organ­isa­tions. The nature trails, developed with the help of a PATA grant, provided the edu­ca­tion­al plat­form. Thanks to close col­lab­or­a­tion between Track of the Tiger, Volun­teers Without Bor­ders (VWB), and the loc­al com­munity, Pang Soong Lodge won the SKAL Eco­tour­ism Award in 2006.

Long memory

My exper­i­ences in spe­cial interest and edu­ca­tion-related travel & tour­ism have been grat­i­fy­ing, how­ever my early exper­i­ences at the mercy of the main­stream industry sup­ply chain con­tin­ued to both­er me. And the sup­ply chain con­tin­ues to adversely impact loc­al com­munit­ies and busi­nesses even today.

Over the past dec­ade, an alli­ance between VWB and Track of the Tiger has slowly put togeth­er a social enter­prise-based mod­el for the wide­spread devel­op­ment of respons­ible tour­ism: our Respons­ible Tour­ism Alli­ance (RTA) concept [PDF]. 

Time to strike 

Now, with the weak­nesses in the tra­di­tion­al com­mis­sion-based mod­el for tour­ism exposed by the fal­lout from the COVID-19 vir­us, we believe it is a good time to start launch­ing RTA in phases. As part of this pro­cess we asked if The “Good Tour­ism” Blog would intro­duce the mod­el to its read­er­ship through the PDF offered here.

We do not expect the mod­el to replace the main­stream mod­el but to run along­side it, provide an altern­at­ive integ­rated solu­tion to the prob­lems of small and loc­al busi­nesses; help them real­ise a more equit­able share of tour­ism rev­en­ue, which has long been prom­ised but is as yet undelivered.

I invite all those who sup­port the need for change to also sup­port the Respons­ible Tour­ism Alli­ance. I wel­come col­lab­or­a­tion on its devel­op­ment in north­ern Thai­l­and and bey­ond. And do let me know if you would like to pre­view the web­site. Please find my con­tact details in the download.

Fea­tured image (top of post): On a Pang Soong Lodge nat­ur­al trail. Sup­plied by author.

Download

“Post COVID-19: An Oppor­tun­ity to Address the Prob­lems in Tour­ism” [PDF] by Shane K Beary

About the author

Shane K Beary, a pro­ponent of respons­ible tour­ism in north­ern Thai­l­and since 1986, is an act­ive owner/operator in resorts, tour oper­a­tions, exper­i­en­tial edu­ca­tion, cor­por­ate team building/leadership, and cor­por­ate social respons­ib­il­ity (CSR) pro­gramme man­age­ment, as well as spe­cial interest travel. With the help of a small team he has over sev­er­al years developed the busi­ness mod­el for the Respons­ible Tour­ism Alli­ance [PDF].

Shane is the CEO of Track of the Tiger TRD (Tour­ism Resources Devel­op­ment), which he estab­lished in 1986. He is also the founder of and seni­or con­sult­ant for the Volun­teers Without Bor­ders Found­a­tion. Togeth­er they won the SKAL Eco­tour­ism Award in 2006 for the Pang Soong Nature Trails Pro­ject, which sup­por­ted envir­on­ment­al edu­ca­tion in part­ner­ship with the vil­lage com­munity of Ban Mae Lai, Chi­ang Mai.